Possible Solution to the SMWW / Clois Division?

[Sacred Knight]

I always have felt its out-of-character for Lois to extend her lifespan artificially. She gets to live for eons just because she happens to be married to Superman? She doesn't put herself on that kind of pedestal. She's a mortal human being. A proud mortal human being. I have no trouble buying the idea of magical ageless serums in a lore such as the DCU, don't get me wrong, I'm not claiming the very concept goes too far or defies suspension of disbelief. But the character I grew up reading wouldn't utilize them. In my head Lois ages and dies, because that is life, that is the natural order of her species, and its a lot Lois and he will have accepted will eventually happen long before it does. No one lives forever. Not even Superman, its just both a blessing and a curse that his lifespan defies that of human beings by quite a bit.

I have no problem with people who disagree, anything we ever get from such time periods is always somewhere in the "imaginary story" realm anyway so anyone is free to believe what they want there. Those can and often are utilized to be as out there as can be because it can be afforded, as it never really has to count toward an ongoing continuity. This has always been my personal take, though.

[Last Son of Krypton]

Nothing directly said they weren't in continuity...and Jon was featured and mentioned in some of them.

Ok, yeah, there's the niggle with frigging Deathstroke at the Superman appreciation rally that made people wince, but the one-shots that tied up Jurgens on Action established that story counted

Well, outside of Bendis' tease for his run, they were stories to celebrate the character 80th anniversary that will not get referenced again by other writers.

[Miles To Go]

I always have felt its out-of-character for Lois to extend her lifespan artificially. She gets to live forever just because she happens to be married to Superman? She doesn't put herself on that kind of pedestal. She's a mortal human being. A proud mortal human being. I have no trouble buying the idea of magical ageless serums in a lore such as the DCU, don't get me wrong, I'm not claiming the very concept goes too far or defies suspension of disbelief. But the character I grew up reading wouldn't utilize them. In my head Lois ages and dies, because that is life, and its a lot Lois and he will have accepted will eventually happen long before it does. No one lives forever. Not even Superman, its just both a blessing and a curse that his lifespan defies that of human beings by quite a bit.

I have no problem with people who disagree, anything we ever get from such time periods is always somewhere in the "imaginary story" realm anyway so anyone is free to believe what they want there. Those can and often are utilized to be as out there as can be. This has always been my personal take, though.

Perfectly understandable, I do agree with you a lot about what kind of moral laws Lois would adhere to. My headcanon is Lois may have obligations to this cosmic news network that are keeping her from settling into old age. The fact there's the little nugget of her actually disliking the serum shows to me a little hint that she's tiring of it, and will eventually give it up.

[stargazer01]

Did you read Action Comics#1000? There's a story in there by Tom King which reveals Lois takes a serum that extends her life a billion years so she can run an intergalactic news station and continue to live alongside Clark and Jon (Clark remarks that she hates the taste of it)

And then there's DC One Million, where Lois has died and many centuries later Clark ultimately recreates Lois to be with him again

Yes I actually read both stories. I'm not sure Lois asked to be brought back in DC One Million. I can see why some may find it romantic, but at the same time it seems like Superman can't let go and is unable to move on. I want to think that Superman would respect Lois' feelings and ideas.

The other story also sounds romantic but really far fetched that Lois would be able to live that long. Any way, this is comics and fantasy, so anything can happen I suppose. Anything.. Canon is meant to be broken all the time for better or worse.

[Ascended]

To me the need of the "human" love interest is so retro, a hold over from a time when comicbook characters were separate entities in there own self contained universes. The Advent of the Shared universe means just that SHARED. One hand washes the other. How many times has Clark turtled up to protect his own little slice of Heaven whilst the world around him burned? How many times have Heroes been out on a limb when help is only supposed to be a few cities away and has Superspeed? New 52 was a truly Shared Universe where anyone could interact with anyone without an Event going on or "Guest" appearance.

Hey, to each their own, and all that. But I don't think this is a matter of "no humans" so much as it is a matter of these characters having been together (in some fashion) for generations. They're all built around each other on a narrative level, and at the end of the day it'll always be Lois and Clark (no matter how much we may wish otherwise).

As for the shared element of the DCU, that's always been an illusion more than any kind of actuality. I mean, we get guest appearances, name drops, and team books, but if these heroes "really" worked together and pooled their abilities and resources? They'd fix the world's problems and clean up the dirty cities within a year and then have nothing left to do. I mean, is there any reason why the League doesn't fly into Gotham and fix the city over the weekend?

Ultimately, Clark and Diana doesn't work because these guys are dealing with completely different creative teams and (sometimes) editorial offices. It's highly limiting and adds new hurdles for writers to jump. Communication between writers within the same office is questionable enough most of the time, getting writers to communicate and bounce ideas off each other across editorial offices? That'll slow things down to a crawl.

[theoneandonly]

OTOH if the league enters Gotham and encounters the joker then something like endgame occurring is a possibility(no matter how silly it is that Barry's fast metabolism doesn't burn out the venom in a millisecond and other implausibilities) not to mention that if the "clay" version of WW met clay face she would run into the risk of him absorbing her like in that particular arc where it actually occurred.

[Armor of God]

To me the need of the "human" love interest is so retro, a hold over from a time when comicbook characters were separate entities in there own self contained universes. The Advent of the Shared universe means just that SHARED. One hand washes the other. How many times has Clark turtled up to protect his own little slice of Heaven whilst the world around him burned? How many times have Heroes been out on a limb when help is only supposed to be a few cities away and has Superspeed? New 52 was a truly Shared Universe where anyone could interact with anyone without an Event going on or "Guest" appearance.

Well for one thing the Rebirth era and onwards has been very interconnected.
Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps as well as Green Lanterns continued threads from Action Comics.
Action's Oz storyline connected with Tynion's Detective which in turn led to a storyline that connected Superman, Super Sons and Teen Titans.
Snyder, Williamson and Tynions books are all connected.
King's Batman is connected/will connect with Catwoman, Nightwing, Red Hood, Teen Titans and Batgirl.
Post Rebirth universe is more shared than the New 52 was.
But that said you cant forcibly lock characters in to a narrative because if they're independent IPs then they need to grow as well. Its not beneficial for the company to have one big IP absorb another big IP. All it does is create space which the competition can potentially occupy.

[Lvenger]

Ultimately, Clark and Diana doesn't work because these guys are dealing with completely different creative teams and (sometimes) editorial offices. It's highly limiting and adds new hurdles for writers to jump. Communication between writers within the same office is questionable enough most of the time, getting writers to communicate and bounce ideas off each other across editorial offices? That'll slow things down to a crawl.

Definitely an underrated observation on why the SM/WW romance failed so badly, well said. The different editorial offices that these characters belonged to made it harder to coordinate a romantic relationship between the two and that uneven depiction of the romance factored heavily into its unpopularity.

[Miles To Go]

I can see why some may find it romantic.

Lois certainly did.

but at the same time it seems like Superman can't let go and is unable to move on.

And that's a bad thing...how exactly?

I understand you have a different take on love, but there's just as many people in life who think you need only one person to get by, and there are people who have lost their husbands or wives and never once remarried or involved themselves with anyone else. There's nothing wrong with refusing to let go if that person meant the world to you.

[Sacred Knight]

Definitely an underrated observation on why the SM/WW romance failed so badly, well said. The different editorial offices that these characters belonged to made it harder to coordinate a romantic relationship between the two and that uneven depiction of the romance factored heavily into its unpopularity.

Except it didn't fail badly, at all. And it wasn't unpopular. Ascended is pointing out why he feels it couldn't have lasted long term in a main continuity setting. That's a much different assessment than saying it failed and was unpopular for the time it was around, both statements of which are flat out falsehoods.

For the time it lasted it wasn't uneven either. It was pretty even across the board because at the time WW was under Superman's editorial anyway. There was no difficulty in coordinating from a characterization POV. The only potential oddity was it never being mentioned in WW's main title, and even that was pretty easily overlooked because while not mentioned it was never contradicted either. Azz was merely telling his own completely self-contained story.

Would problems have come up later, had it lasted longer than the 4 years it did? Maybe, especially since creative and editorial situations naturally change with the passage of time. But for the time it was a go, none of these things were issues and its revisionist history to claim otherwise.

[Miles To Go]

Except it didn't fail badly, at all. And it wasn't unpopular.

Clickbait mainline video services like WatchMojo have recently listed the pairing as a comic book couple fans hated.

For the time it lasted it wasn't uneven either. It was pretty even across the board because at the time WW was under Superman's editorial anyway. There was no difficulty in coordinating from a characterization POV. The only potential oddity was it never being mentioned in WW's main title, and even that was pretty easily overlooked because while not mentioned it was never contradicted either.

The fact the main writer of WW at the time didn't want to bother himself with the romance was another damaging blow to it. Indeed the book seem to want to build something between Diana and Orion but were prevented largely by the inconvenience of the romance.

[Sacred Knight]

I don't know who WatchMojo is but they're woefully wrong, and if they're clickbait, that's why they're wrong, because clickbait stuff doesn't care about reality.

The fact the main writer of WW at the time didn't want to bother himself with the romance was another damaging blow to it. Indeed the book seem to want to build something between Diana and Orion but were prevented largely by the inconvenience of the romance.

Not at all. It proved entirely incidental because again, it never did anything to contradict it at all. It got its build in JL/Superman, a little bit of Action, and then their own shared title. Azz was doing his own thing, it didn't outright need to be crossed over there anyway, and to DC's credit they didn't force him to. He had his direction from the word go and he largely got to tell it. So the only potential issue would have been contradiction, which never took place. The only thing DC mandated was squashing the WW and Orion thing, which barely affected anything within the story told. If anything it made the run better because WW fans hated the new Orion anyway. Azz unfortunately made him a sexist tool, so all this mandate did was save Azz from himself on a bad idea.

[Miles To Go]

I don't know who WatchMojo is but they're woefully wrong, and if they're clickbait, that's why they're wrong, because clickbait stuff doesn't care about reality.


Not at all. It proved entirely incidental because again, it never did anything to contradict it at all. It got its build in JL/Superman, a little bit of Action, and then their own shared title. Azz was doing his own thing, it didn't outright need to be crossed over there anyway, and to DC's credit they didn't force him to.

A significant development like this in Diana's life should have been prioritised and co-ordinated over every major title involving her. The simple fact this didn't happen where it mattered, not even trying to make an impression on her core fanbase, did the pairing more harm than good. It showed it was never quite a big deal, at least not enough to factor into Diana's own routine and make her core title more involved in the Super-Line.

[Sacred Knight]

I don't think that was necessary to make it seem important. Everyone knew what was going on. It was advertised, marketed, and prominent in enough places that the word was out plenty and everyone knew it was a thing. That it didn't feature in her main title didn't matter at all. I maintain it was entirely incidental. It didn't necessarily help anything but it hurt absolutely nothing either. It only would have hurt if it actually went out of its way to contradict it, that would have confused people then you have an issue. But that never occurred. If anything I think the history of that four year period proves that it had no negative effect, or any real effect at all, as opposed to showing evidence of the opposite.

Besides, Wonder Woman only has one title. While it would be acknowledged more after Azz, even then it never became prominent and to me that was the smart move. Even more so after they got their own book. It could have dwindled as a focus in Superman at that point too with little problems. With only one solo, they let it be her solo (well, I guess some WW fans might argue that too with the huge cast, but none of that was Superman's fault).

[stargazer01]

And that's a bad thing...how exactly?

I understand you have a different take on love, but there's just as many people in life who think you need only one person to get by, and there are people who have lost their husbands or wives and never once remarried or involved themselves with anyone else. There's nothing wrong with refusing to let go if that person meant the world to you.

Yes nothing wrong with staying single forever AS LONG as Superman/Clark is happy and at peace, IMO.

It also isn't wrong at all to be able to fall in love again with someone else if he wants. For me, whatever makes him happy and he is not hurting anyone.

So it all comes down to the writers.

I don't know who WatchMojo is but they're woefully wrong, and if they're clickbait, that's why they're wrong, because clickbait stuff doesn't care about reality.
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WatchMojo is all over the place with their lists, IMO. I disagree with them all the time.